Another copper cable considered a "gold standard" for outdoor shielded + 9th ESD drain and ground wire, intended for long term rooftop and tower installation is Shireen. There's a variety of types.
https://www.shireeninc.com/osc/cables/cat6 On Wed, Aug 14, 2019 at 6:30 PM Brandon Martin <lists.na...@monmotha.net> wrote: > On 8/13/19 2:32 PM, Warren Kumari wrote: > > This probably won't fully solve your problem, but I run a bunch of > > Ubiquiti access points and similar -- I suffered a number of lightning > > related outages, and then started using their TOUGHcable - > > https://www.ui.com/accessories/toughcable/ > > While ToughCable isn't bad (especially for the price), if you want > something REALLY durable both physically and against electrical > transients, I've been very happy with Primus C6CMXFS-1864BK. It costs > quite a bit more than the ToughCable but has real water blocking (which > means you had better be prepared to deal with "Icky Pic"), heavy > shielding with drain, meets or exceeds CAT6 (which means you can push > gigE a bit beyond 100m pretty reliably if you've got a tall tower or a > hut far away from a tower base), and has 23AWG wire so PoE, especially > Ubnt's crummy 24V passive POE, can go farther, too. > > Be warned it's a bear to terminate. In addition to the waterblock, the > cable diameter is too large for typical crimp-on RJ45 ends. You have to > either use special ends (which Primus sells, among others) or terminate > it to a punch block which, while not usually a problem in a hut, is > often problematic up on a tower. > > Ubnt also makes an outdoor fiber media converter I've found useful for > "small cell" style wISP deployments where I can drag my own fiber to the > tower/pole and don't want/need a hut or enclosure at the base. Part > number is F-POE-G2. That'll let you get your power and signal > separated. I do wish they'd just put SFP slots in their radios, but at > the price they sell them for, I guess I can't complain too much. I'd > put real 802.3af/at PoE higher on the list of wants, honestly. > > As to actual surge protectors, I see there have been some other > suggestions in the list, and I'll defer to them. I've personally had > decent luck with just making sure the Ubnt passive POE injectors (which > I need since I don't usually use their switches) are well grounded to be > mostly sufficient (along with the tower and hut having proper grounding > infrastructure). I've not lost any radios, though I've had some lockups > requiring power cycle after nearby lightning strikes on some of the > lower end WA based platforms. The XC based platforms seem hardier. My > sample size isn't huge, though. > > I'm usually of the impression that, unless you've got carrier (cellular > or committed-rate microwave) class wireless gear on the tower or > aggressive SLAs you have to meet from a wireless PoP, it's probably > cheaper overall to just take reasonable precautions against lightning > than it is to try to make things handle a "direct" strike. Figure in > the wISP world, tech moves so fast that you're having to put new things > on the tower at least every 3-5 years anyway, so as long as an > unscheduled trip up to the tower doesn't cost you $ARM+$LEG, it's > probably easier to just take a lightning strike that fries everything > due to extreme proximity as an unscheduled upgrade than the try to > handle it electrically. > > "Nearby" strikes, static, electrical transients on your utility line, > etc. are a different matter. Those you can economically protect against > i.e. the protection will not cost as much or more than the gear and > service you're protecting. > -- > Brandon Martin >